Today, President Joe Biden announced that he will commute the sentences of almost 1,500 Americans for non-violent offenses—the most ever granted in one day. Those affected by the commutations are people released to in-home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, whom some Republicans have pushed to send back to prison. Biden also announced that he would pardon 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes including drug offenses.  

As I previously reported, there has been pressure on Joe Biden to use his clemency power more broadly in the final months of his term—which intensified after he pardoned his son, Hunter. More than 130 civil and human rights organizations have called on Biden to commute the sentences of those on federal death row before he leaves office. Biden has openly opposed the death penalty, and those commutations would prevent the execution of 40 people—who, instead of being killed, would serve out the rest of their lives in prison.      

Groups have also called on Biden to free more people serving time for nonviolent offenses. Drug Policy Alliance, a non-partisan advocacy group, recently asked Biden to commute the sentences lengthened by the racist disparity in sentencing between powder and crack cocaine, which has disproportionately affected the Black community; the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working for the release of all marijuana prisoners, joined members of Congress in November on the Capital Steps to call on Biden to rectify what they called “draconian sentences given by judges” in an accompanying letter to the president.

In response to today’s announcement, the Last Prisoner Project’s executive director, Sarah Gersten, said in a public statement, “We are heartened to see the President using his clemency power more robustly, and are eager to see more action before he leaves office. It’s clear from the White House’s statement that the administration sees nonviolent drug offenders, and particularly those impacted by unjust cannabis offenses, as a critical category of clemency recipients deserving relief.”

Biden’s announcement implied that more clemencies should be expected, saying that he will “continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances.”

On November 19, 1996, Pedro Moreno’s life was upended when federal officials burst into his Texas home, arresting him and his wife, Melba, on charges related to marijuana distribution and taking them away from their three children. Melba was released after 13 years, but her time with her children was cut short: she passed away the following year. Pedro Moreno pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana and commit money laundering, bracing for a 20-year sentence, but ended up getting life without parole—for a plant sold legally less than 5 miles from his California federal prison cell. Although his four brothers had their life sentences commuted in 2017 by President Obama for the same case, Pedro has not been granted clemency; it’s still not clear why Obama shortened his brothers’ sentences but not his. He has now been behind bars for more than 28 years, he is almost 65.

I spoke to filmmaker Leo Pfeifer about his new documentary This Is Not Life, a short film that tells the story of Pedro Moreno’s daughter Alejandra—8 years old when Pedro was arrested—as she attempts to free her father while there is still time. 

Producer Maximilian Stafford shared an exclusive early stream of the film, which is produced by his firm, Ground Floor—watch below before its official release on December 10.

Tell me about the film. 

This Is Not Life is about a man serving life in prison for a nonviolent marijuana offense, but it’s really a story about a father and a daughter whose relationship and hope have survived almost three decades of this unimaginably difficult circumstance. 

What do you hope to accomplish with the documentary? 

I hope that the film can tell these personal stories to speak to this large societal challenge of families that have been broken apart by our criminal justice system and by our sentencing policy. And then on the [other] hand, I really hope that this film brings awareness to Pedro’s case in particular and can help him with his effort to receive clemency. 

 What led you to Pedro’s case?

Max [Stafford, producer], originally found the story. He was really interested in criminal justice issues and connected with the [CAN-DO Foundation and] was kind of blown away by the profound injustice of that case. Then I came on board, and I was really drawn to it because it’s a tangible story. It’s about a father and a daughter and a family that was broken apart, but it speaks to America’s War on Drugs and it speaks to mass incarceration.

I spoke to Pedro the first time and [he] instantly—he is just such a kind, generous, nice person—opened up to me about his life and his story and his fears and his wants. Then I spoke to Alex, and I think our first conversation was two-plus hours, and I just heard her whole life story. I felt so much for the family, I felt so much for all the other people that are going through similar things, and I felt compelled to translate that thing I was feeling into the documentary. 

Why do you think the topic is so important? 

We have made a lot of progress as a country, and Pedro is someone who’s been left behind to sit in prison as that progress has happened. There are still so many people sitting in prison because they were sentenced at our height of hysteria around these issues. We live in a country that’s based [on] the idea of freedom and liberty, yet we have this War on Drugs that has not reduced the rate of drug use in our country at all, and has just imprisoned millions of people. 

How exactly did he end up with life in prison for a first-time, non-violent marijuana offense? 

In the ’80s and ’90s, Pedro was involved with an operation that sold marijuana. The government never alleged that there was any violence involved [or] any other drugs. He pled guilty thinking that he would do 20 years in prison, and he ended up being sentenced to life without parole. And he’s already served 28 years. 

Is Pedro’s appeal for clemency especially urgent?  

Since she was 8 years old, Alejandra has been deprived of her father, and he’s now in his mid-sixties and living in a very tough environment, in federal prison. And you don’t know how much time they have left to share.

With each new administration, there’s a question of what will their priorities be: Are they going to follow through with their campaign rhetoric? Are they going to grant clemency to Pedro and people like him? And what people forget is that beneath all of that, there is just this woman who needs to be reunited with her father. 

How do you think Pedro’s case exemplifies the wider national issue of drug war sentencing? 

There’s this extraordinary issue in our country of people being hurt by drugs, and the War on Drugs is not the answer to that. So you look at that one story, and then you look at the tens or hundreds of thousands of people who are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. It makes you stop and think about all of their stories, about all of these people who have been incarcerated. And you think about the lack of efficacy behind this effort for decades: we’ve locked up all these people, we spent billions of dollars on their incarceration. We haven’t reduced the drugs coming into this country.

And people like Pedro, a dedicated father, a family man—he’s serving life without parole because he got caught up in a political moment in the United States where we were giving people these insane sentences that were disproportionate.

I want to speak about Alejandra a bit. How did it affect her life to have both her parents in prison for such a long time? 

It fundamentally tore her life apart. She and her siblings basically became orphans, bounced around to different houses. It caused trauma that still has echoes in her life today, and it’s still something that haunts her. Think about living your life with these loving parents, and then one day your door busts down and it’s the federal government and your parents are gone.

Alejandra was 8 years old when her father was taken away, and when we shot the film, her oldest child was 8 years old. So there is sort of this bittersweet triumph [that] she was able to come out of that and start her own family and build a life that she is so proud of, and that her father is so proud of.

But there is this dark spot in her heart, and that is that her father is missing and in prison. He calls her every day, and they have this beautiful relationship, yet it’s limited to 15-minute phone calls. 

One of the most powerful aspects of the documentary was how little time Alejandra had with her mother when she was released from prison.

It was so important for us to talk about Alejandra’s mother in the film because she waited over a decade for her to be released from prison. Her mother had all of these health issues, and had to really fight to survive and make it out of that system alive because of how taxing it was. And then she only had a year. Alejandra says, “one Thanksgiving, one Christmas.”

You can imagine, if you haven’t had that since you were eight years old, how beautiful it is to be reconnected—and then to have it ripped away from you when she died. The passing of Alejandra’s mother shows her what could happen each year that her father isn’t released from prison. One of her greatest fears, and one of Pedro’s greatest fears, is that he doesn’t make it out of prison alive and get to be reunited with his family. We spent the time to explore the story of Alejandra’s mother to remind people what will happen if no action is taken on behalf of Pedro.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. This Is Not Life begins streaming publicly December 10 on YouTube.

On Sunday, with less than two months remaining in his presidency, President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter, convicted in June on three felony charges related to federal gun crimes and on three felony tax offenses in September. Reactions have been mixed: Many have criticized Biden, who argues that his son’s convictions were politically motivated, for setting a poor precedent and breaking a promise not to intervene. Others—even some who are not fans of the president—have said that they sympathize with his decision to pardon his son.

The controversial decision came after Biden repeatedly committed to not using his presidential powers to interfere in his son’s case—and after months in which Democrats on Capitol Hill, as well as advocates, urged Biden to use his clemency power more broadly to free those incarcerated by federal drug policies that unfairly target Black and brown people. Hunter Biden will not spend a day inside a prison cell for his offenses; the same can’t be said for tens of thousands of people serving federal prison time because of disproportionate conviction and sentencing in the starkly racist War on Drugs. Biden can still pardon many of them, or commute their sentences—and set another, more valuable precedent.

Advocacy groups have praised Biden for some drug-related clemencies, like his move in April to pardon 11 people and commute five sentences the ACLU called unjustly long. Biden also issued pardons in October 2022 for everyone convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law—but, as advocates pointed out, that pardon didn’t actually free anyone who was in prison. 

In October, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and seven Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Biden a letter urging him to commute sentences that exceeded those set by 2018’s First Step Act, a Trump-era criminal justice reform bill that reduced minimum sentences. The Senate letter suggested that thousands would be freed by the action, and called on the Biden administration to grant categorical relief to those who faced harsher sentencing for crack cocaine than they would have for its powder form. (The White House did not respond to questions about whether Biden would commute such sentences.)

In 1986, the Anti–Drug Abuse Act—drafted by then Sen. Joe Biden—set a hundred-to-one ratio between the amounts of powder and crack cocaine that triggered a mandatory five-year minimum sentence. A 2010 reform made it a still-disproportionate eighteen-to-one. The discrepancy has disproportionately affected the Black community: In fiscal 2021, almost four in five people convicted of trafficking crack cocaine were Black, compared to 25 percent for powder cocaine. Drug Policy Alliance, a nonpartisan advocacy group, recently called on Biden to commute sentences lengthened by the disparity.

In 2022, Biden’s Justice Department announced that it would no longer differentiate between powder and crack cocaine when seeking charges, a disparity it said had “no basis in science, furthers no law enforcement purposes, and drives unwarranted racial disparities in our criminal justice system.” Advocates praised the move but pointed out that it was temporary, and only applied to new cases. 

The Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working for the release of all marijuana prisoners nationwide, joined members of Congress in November on the Capitol steps to call on Biden to “rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges,” as it wrote in an accompanying letter advocating pardons for federal marijuana convictions.

As pointed out by Sarah Gersten, the group’s executive director, to Marijuana Moment, Biden’s justification for pardoning his son was that the justice system had reached an unjust outcome—which, she says, “is certainly the case for the nearly 3,000 cannabis prisoners who remain incarcerated federally for activity that has been widely legalized.”

Update, December 3: This article has been updated to refer to the 501(c)(3) organization Drug Policy Alliance. It previously cited the organization’s 501(c)(4) partner.

On Sunday, with less than two months remaining in his presidency, President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter, convicted in June on three felony charges related to federal gun crimes and on three felony tax offenses in September. Reactions have been mixed: Many have criticized Biden, who argues that his son’s convictions were politically motivated, for setting a poor precedent and breaking a promise not to intervene. Others—even some who are not fans of the president—have said that they sympathize with his decision to pardon his son.

The controversial decision came after Biden repeatedly committed to not using his presidential powers to interfere in his son’s case—and after months in which Democrats on Capitol Hill, as well as advocates, urged Biden to use his clemency power more broadly to free those incarcerated by federal drug policies that unfairly target Black and brown people. Hunter Biden will not spend a day inside a prison cell for his offenses; the same can’t be said for tens of thousands of people serving federal prison time because of disproportionate conviction and sentencing in the starkly racist War on Drugs. Biden can still pardon many of them, or commute their sentences—and set another, more valuable precedent.

Advocacy groups have praised Biden for some drug-related clemencies, like his move in April to pardon 11 people and commute five sentences the ACLU called unjustly long. Biden also issued pardons in October 2022 for everyone convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law—but, as advocates pointed out, that pardon didn’t actually free anyone who was in prison. 

In October, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and seven Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Biden a letter urging him to commute sentences that exceeded those set by 2018’s First Step Act, a Trump-era criminal justice reform bill that reduced minimum sentences. The Senate letter suggested that thousands would be freed by the action, and called on the Biden administration to grant categorical relief to those who faced harsher sentencing for crack cocaine than they would have for its powder form. (The White House did not respond to questions about whether Biden would commute such sentences.)

In 1986, the Anti–Drug Abuse Act—drafted by then Sen. Joe Biden—set a hundred-to-one ratio between the amounts of powder and crack cocaine that triggered a mandatory five-year minimum sentence. A 2010 reform made it a still-disproportionate eighteen-to-one. The discrepancy has disproportionately affected the Black community: In fiscal 2021, almost four in five people convicted of trafficking crack cocaine were Black, compared to 25 percent for powder cocaine. Drug Policy Alliance, a nonpartisan advocacy group, recently called on Biden to commute sentences lengthened by the disparity.

In 2022, Biden’s Justice Department announced that it would no longer differentiate between powder and crack cocaine when seeking charges, a disparity it said had “no basis in science, furthers no law enforcement purposes, and drives unwarranted racial disparities in our criminal justice system.” Advocates praised the move but pointed out that it was temporary, and only applied to new cases. 

The Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit working for the release of all marijuana prisoners nationwide, joined members of Congress in November on the Capitol steps to call on Biden to “rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges,” as it wrote in an accompanying letter advocating pardons for federal marijuana convictions.

As pointed out by Sarah Gersten, the group’s executive director, to Marijuana Moment, Biden’s justification for pardoning his son was that the justice system had reached an unjust outcome—which, she says, “is certainly the case for the nearly 3,000 cannabis prisoners who remain incarcerated federally for activity that has been widely legalized.”

Update, December 3: This article has been updated to refer to the 501(c)(3) organization Drug Policy Alliance. It previously cited the organization’s 501(c)(4) partner.

Arizona voters passed Proposition 314, a measure that will allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the US border outside ports of entry and empower state judges to order deportations. The ballot measure passed with just over 62 percent of the vote. Advocates, including the ACLU of Arizona and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, have harshly condemned the measure, warning that it would open the door for racial profiling and harassment for people of color living in Arizona.

The law will likely face challenges, as immigration enforcement is a federal power, and similar state laws have been struck down in the past.

Arizona is no stranger to constitutionally questionable immigration laws. In 2012, the US Supreme Court struck down most of Senate Bill 1070, which made it illegal to be undocumented in the state, ruling that states don’t have the power to punish people for being in the country without documentation.  

In Texas, a similar bill that sought to allow police to arrest people crossing the US-Mexico border outside ports of entry into the state has been repeatedly blocked from going into effect because of legal challenges from the Justice Department and immigration advocacy groups that say the law infringes on the federal government’s sole authority over immigration.

The Arizona and Texas measures are part of a growing number of anti-immigrant proposals from Republican state lawmakers nationwide. The League of United Latin American Citizens—one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country—found that state lawmakers had already proposed 233 anti-immigrant bills over a month before Election Day, more than four times the total number from 2020. 

Arizona voters passed Proposition 314, a measure that will allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the US border outside ports of entry and empower state judges to order deportations. The ballot measure passed with just over 62 percent of the vote. Advocates, including the ACLU of Arizona and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, have harshly condemned the measure, warning that it would open the door for racial profiling and harassment for people of color living in Arizona.

The law will likely face challenges, as immigration enforcement is a federal power, and similar state laws have been struck down in the past.

Arizona is no stranger to constitutionally questionable immigration laws. In 2012, the US Supreme Court struck down most of Senate Bill 1070, which made it illegal to be undocumented in the state, ruling that states don’t have the power to punish people for being in the country without documentation.  

In Texas, a similar bill that sought to allow police to arrest people crossing the US-Mexico border outside ports of entry into the state has been repeatedly blocked from going into effect because of legal challenges from the Justice Department and immigration advocacy groups that say the law infringes on the federal government’s sole authority over immigration.

The Arizona and Texas measures are part of a growing number of anti-immigrant proposals from Republican state lawmakers nationwide. The League of United Latin American Citizens—one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country—found that state lawmakers had already proposed 233 anti-immigrant bills over a month before Election Day, more than four times the total number from 2020. 

With the Federal Emergency Management Agency reeling from major staffing and funding shortages amid the impact of Hurricane Helene, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused on Sunday to commit to reconvening the House before Election Day to aid recovery efforts. In response to a letter from President Biden urging congressional leaders back to replenish federal disaster loan funding, Johnson said during a Fox News Sunday interview that he’d only do so after the election—all but ensuring the funds will run out.

The Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program offers low-interest loans to businesses as well as homeowners and renters in disaster areas, and is often the largest source of disaster recovery funds available to survivors. In the letter, Biden also reiterated the need for more disaster relief funds for FEMA, which he says will otherwise be forced to pause long-term recovery efforts related to previous disasters.

Earlier this year, FEMA was already forced to implement “immediate needs funding” restrictions, which paused funding for previous disasters. It’s very likely, without additional funding, that the agency would have to do so again, which would delay vital recovery projects and repairs that are essential for communities to rebuild and prepare for future crises.

Johnson pointed to the $20 billion Congress allocated for FEMA as part of a stopgap measure—then returned to his previously scheduled attacks on undocumented immigrants, who Johnson inexplicably blamed for the shortfall. While he did acknowledge that the streams of funding for FEMA’s disaster relief efforts are separate from those used to address immigration relief, he also attacked the Biden administration for supposedly “gleefully” reimbursing NGOs for transporting undocumented immigrants across the country. In reality, migrant relief efforts represent less than three percent of FEMA’s total annual budget—and the shortfall would still be there if these efforts stopped. 

In September of this year, as a response to FEMA implementing such restrictions, the National Association of Counties, along with nine other organizations, wrote a letter asking Congress to provide $6.1 billion in additional funding so FEMA could continue long-term recovery efforts. If every dollar spent in the last fiscal year on FEMA’s Shelter and Service Program—which provides migrant support—went to that end, it would still leave a gap of more than $5.3 billion for FEMA to restore its long-term recovery plans.

And while the $20 billion Johnson mentions did allow FEMA to do so, the stopgap measure was just that: the restrictions could easily come back into force as the total cost of Hurricane Helene continues to rise, and as Hurricane Milton—which is expected to be one of the most intense in history—makes landfall in Florida.      

With the Federal Emergency Management Agency reeling from major staffing and funding shortages amid the impact of Hurricane Helene, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused on Sunday to commit to reconvening the House before Election Day to aid recovery efforts. In response to a letter from President Biden urging congressional leaders back to replenish federal disaster loan funding, Johnson said during a Fox News Sunday interview that he’d only do so after the election—all but ensuring the funds will run out.

The Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program offers low-interest loans to businesses as well as homeowners and renters in disaster areas, and is often the largest source of disaster recovery funds available to survivors. In the letter, Biden also reiterated the need for more disaster relief funds for FEMA, which he says will otherwise be forced to pause long-term recovery efforts related to previous disasters.

Earlier this year, FEMA was already forced to implement “immediate needs funding” restrictions, which paused funding for previous disasters. It’s very likely, without additional funding, that the agency would have to do so again, which would delay vital recovery projects and repairs that are essential for communities to rebuild and prepare for future crises.

Johnson pointed to the $20 billion Congress allocated for FEMA as part of a stopgap measure—then returned to his previously scheduled attacks on undocumented immigrants, who Johnson inexplicably blamed for the shortfall. While he did acknowledge that the streams of funding for FEMA’s disaster relief efforts are separate from those used to address immigration relief, he also attacked the Biden administration for supposedly “gleefully” reimbursing NGOs for transporting undocumented immigrants across the country. In reality, migrant relief efforts represent less than three percent of FEMA’s total annual budget—and the shortfall would still be there if these efforts stopped. 

In September of this year, as a response to FEMA implementing such restrictions, the National Association of Counties, along with nine other organizations, wrote a letter asking Congress to provide $6.1 billion in additional funding so FEMA could continue long-term recovery efforts. If every dollar spent in the last fiscal year on FEMA’s Shelter and Service Program—which provides migrant support—went to that end, it would still leave a gap of more than $5.3 billion for FEMA to restore its long-term recovery plans.

And while the $20 billion Johnson mentions did allow FEMA to do so, the stopgap measure was just that: the restrictions could easily come back into force as the total cost of Hurricane Helene continues to rise, and as Hurricane Milton—which is expected to be one of the most intense in history—makes landfall in Florida.      

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agency didn’t have enough funding for the rest of hurricane season. Some on the right, including Trump, seized on the moment to attack their favorite scapegoat: undocumented immigrants.

“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants who they want to have vote for them,” Trump falsely claimed during a rally in Michigan yesterday.

Trump: “They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants who they want to have vote for them.” pic.twitter.com/r8XDiXWvCA

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 3, 2024

FEMA’s response: a fact check page, where the agency denied diverting funds.

Here’s how FEMA funding actually works: Congress allocates disaster relief funds, which FEMA can use for things like direct financial assistance for those in affected areas, delivering essential items like food and water, and funding rebuilding projects from local governments. On the other hand, FEMA’s migrant support efforts go through the Shelter and Services Program, which Congress has to fund separately and which has recently represented less than three percent of their total annual budget.

But FEMA does have a funding problem: it’s struggling to keep up with increasingly deadly natural disasters caused by climate change.

This year, FEMA began operating on what’s known as an “immediate needs funding” basis because of low funds, which meant the agency paused recovery funding for previous disasters and prioritized immediate responses to current disasters. By September 13, the United States had already experienced 64 major disasters that had killed 149 people and cost an estimated $53 billion. Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst from the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a statement that Congress needed to act quickly to supplement FEMA’s disaster relief fund.

Then Hurricane Helene hit. So far, the storm has killed more than 200 people, and over 600 are unaccounted for. Congress did allocate $20 billion as part of the stopgap measure in late September—which allowed FEMA to lift the “immediate needs funding” status—but property damage alone from Helena is estimated to be anywhere between $15 billion and $26 billion, and with only 6 percent of U.S. homeowners having flood insurance, FEMA would have to fund many of these repairs. This 20 billion would also need to be split between the current crisis and efforts to assist with previous natural disasters.

Climate change has led to bigger, more dangerous natural disasters. Helene may have been up to 20 percent wetter over the Southeast and 7 percent windier in Florida’s Gulf due to climate change, according to one group of scientists.

Politicians across the political spectrum have called on Congress to reconvene to address the funding issues. A bipartisan group of twelve senators from the states hit hardest by Helene signed a letter calling on Congress to reconvene before the election to “address the scope and scale of destruction experienced by our constituents.” But Speaker Mike Johnson has resisted these calls, telling the New York Times that “there’s no necessity for Congress to come back.”

While the nation’s most powerful decision-makers decide whether or not to act, undocumented migrants will likely make up a large percentage of those working on hurricane recovery efforts. After Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding across Louisiana and Texas in 2017, killing more than 100 people, immigrants made up the bulk of recovery-related workers—estimates suggest over 70 percent of these workers were undocumented. Undocumented workers have also played a major role in recovery efforts after Hurricane Michael tore through Florida and Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agency didn’t have enough funding for the rest of hurricane season. Some on the right, including Trump, seized on the moment to attack their favorite scapegoat: undocumented immigrants.

“They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants who they want to have vote for them,” Trump falsely claimed during a rally in Michigan yesterday.

Trump: “They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants who they want to have vote for them.” pic.twitter.com/r8XDiXWvCA

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 3, 2024

FEMA’s response: a fact check page, where the agency denied diverting funds.

Here’s how FEMA funding actually works: Congress allocates disaster relief funds, which FEMA can use for things like direct financial assistance for those in affected areas, delivering essential items like food and water, and funding rebuilding projects from local governments. On the other hand, FEMA’s migrant support efforts go through the Shelter and Services Program, which Congress has to fund separately and which has recently represented less than three percent of their total annual budget.

But FEMA does have a funding problem: it’s struggling to keep up with increasingly deadly natural disasters caused by climate change.

This year, FEMA began operating on what’s known as an “immediate needs funding” basis because of low funds, which meant the agency paused recovery funding for previous disasters and prioritized immediate responses to current disasters. By September 13, the United States had already experienced 64 major disasters that had killed 149 people and cost an estimated $53 billion. Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst from the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a statement that Congress needed to act quickly to supplement FEMA’s disaster relief fund.

Then Hurricane Helene hit. So far, the storm has killed more than 200 people, and over 600 are unaccounted for. Congress did allocate $20 billion as part of the stopgap measure in late September—which allowed FEMA to lift the “immediate needs funding” status—but property damage alone from Helena is estimated to be anywhere between $15 billion and $26 billion, and with only 6 percent of U.S. homeowners having flood insurance, FEMA would have to fund many of these repairs. This 20 billion would also need to be split between the current crisis and efforts to assist with previous natural disasters.

Climate change has led to bigger, more dangerous natural disasters. Helene may have been up to 20 percent wetter over the Southeast and 7 percent windier in Florida’s Gulf due to climate change, according to one group of scientists.

Politicians across the political spectrum have called on Congress to reconvene to address the funding issues. A bipartisan group of twelve senators from the states hit hardest by Helene signed a letter calling on Congress to reconvene before the election to “address the scope and scale of destruction experienced by our constituents.” But Speaker Mike Johnson has resisted these calls, telling the New York Times that “there’s no necessity for Congress to come back.”

While the nation’s most powerful decision-makers decide whether or not to act, undocumented migrants will likely make up a large percentage of those working on hurricane recovery efforts. After Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding across Louisiana and Texas in 2017, killing more than 100 people, immigrants made up the bulk of recovery-related workers—estimates suggest over 70 percent of these workers were undocumented. Undocumented workers have also played a major role in recovery efforts after Hurricane Michael tore through Florida and Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans.

At the first (and likely only) vice presidential debate, JD Vance was asked if Trump’s pledge to implement the largest mass deportation plan in United States history would involve deporting undocumented parents and separating them from their kids born in the United States. Instead of answering the question, Vance misleadingly claimed that the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration had “effectively lost” hundreds of thousands of children.

“Some of them have been sex trafficked, some of them, hopefully, are at home with their families. Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules,” Vance said on Tuesday night.  

Mass deportations would also result in millions of families becoming poor.

Vance seemed to be referring to a report from August from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, but he got the facts wrong: The report does not say that 320,000 children have been “effectively lost.” What it does say is that between 2019 and 2023—a period that included part of the Trump administration—about 32,000 unaccompanied children missed their immigration court hearings. One possible explanation for minors missing court hearings is that they are very often forced to deal with a convoluted maze of government agencies and subagencies without legal counsel, according to an analysis of the report from the American Immigration Council. The analysis goes on to say that “Immigration enforcement agencies must acknowledge that children need special protections, and Congress should fund legal counsel, to help move them through the maze of government agencies involved. “

The OIG report also says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had yet to issue notices to about 291,000 minors to appear in court to begin removal proceedings. The 320,000 number Vance is pointing to appears to be a combination of the two numbers—neither of which refers to lost migrant children.

To recap:

There are not 25 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

DHS has not lost track of 320,000 children.

Migrants do not bring fentanyl.

TPS and CBP One (parole) are not "illegal."

— Adam Isacson (@adam_wola) October 2, 2024

Vance goes on to say, “The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide open southern border.” His attempt to make it sound like the Trump-Vance campaign cares about the safety of migrant children hides the reality that Trump’s mass deportation plan would lead to the inhumane separation of millions of American families and would have devastating effects. 

About 20 million Americans are living in households with mixed immigration status where some people are undocumented, and others are citizens or have legal permission to live in the United States. Trump’s mass deportation plan would not only harm those 10.3 million who are undocumented and would be removed from the country but also the 9.7 million who have legal status and would have their family members ripped away. Nearly 3.4 million parents would no longer be able to take care of their children because they would be forced out of a country that, in many cases, they have lived in for decades.

Aside from the mass trauma this would cause in millions of children who would be left without one or more parent, it would also have a huge economic impact. One study found that mass deportations would result in the median income of mixed-status households decreasing by almost half and millions of families becoming poor. And as my colleague Isabela Dias has reported, Trump’s mass deportation plan affects not only those in mixed-status households but the country as a whole, with the United States’ economy projected to shrink by almost 6 percent and over 900,000 fewer jobs being available for citizens.

Vance’s misleading claims not only work to distract from Trump’s inhumane mass deportation plan but, more disgustingly, frame their immigration policies as a supposed attempt to help migrant children. The honest answer from Vance on whether Trump would separate families would have been, “Yes, and it would be terrible.”

At the first (and likely only) vice presidential debate, JD Vance was asked if Trump’s pledge to implement the largest mass deportation plan in United States history would involve deporting undocumented parents and separating them from their kids born in the United States. Instead of answering the question, Vance misleadingly claimed that the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration had “effectively lost” hundreds of thousands of children.

“Some of them have been sex trafficked, some of them, hopefully, are at home with their families. Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules,” Vance said on Tuesday night.  

Mass deportations would also result in millions of families becoming poor.

Vance seemed to be referring to a report from August from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, but he got the facts wrong: The report does not say that 320,000 children have been “effectively lost.” What it does say is that between 2019 and 2023—a period that included part of the Trump administration—about 32,000 unaccompanied children missed their immigration court hearings. One possible explanation for minors missing court hearings is that they are very often forced to deal with a convoluted maze of government agencies and subagencies without legal counsel, according to an analysis of the report from the American Immigration Council. The analysis goes on to say that “Immigration enforcement agencies must acknowledge that children need special protections, and Congress should fund legal counsel, to help move them through the maze of government agencies involved. “

The OIG report also says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had yet to issue notices to about 291,000 minors to appear in court to begin removal proceedings. The 320,000 number Vance is pointing to appears to be a combination of the two numbers—neither of which refers to lost migrant children.

To recap:

There are not 25 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

DHS has not lost track of 320,000 children.

Migrants do not bring fentanyl.

TPS and CBP One (parole) are not "illegal."

— Adam Isacson (@adam_wola) October 2, 2024

Vance goes on to say, “The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide open southern border.” His attempt to make it sound like the Trump-Vance campaign cares about the safety of migrant children hides the reality that Trump’s mass deportation plan would lead to the inhumane separation of millions of American families and would have devastating effects. 

About 20 million Americans are living in households with mixed immigration status where some people are undocumented, and others are citizens or have legal permission to live in the United States. Trump’s mass deportation plan would not only harm those 10.3 million who are undocumented and would be removed from the country but also the 9.7 million who have legal status and would have their family members ripped away. Nearly 3.4 million parents would no longer be able to take care of their children because they would be forced out of a country that, in many cases, they have lived in for decades.

Aside from the mass trauma this would cause in millions of children who would be left without one or more parent, it would also have a huge economic impact. One study found that mass deportations would result in the median income of mixed-status households decreasing by almost half and millions of families becoming poor. And as my colleague Isabela Dias has reported, Trump’s mass deportation plan affects not only those in mixed-status households but the country as a whole, with the United States’ economy projected to shrink by almost 6 percent and over 900,000 fewer jobs being available for citizens.

Vance’s misleading claims not only work to distract from Trump’s inhumane mass deportation plan but, more disgustingly, frame their immigration policies as a supposed attempt to help migrant children. The honest answer from Vance on whether Trump would separate families would have been, “Yes, and it would be terrible.”

Republicans have falsely labeled Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s “border czar” in their attempt to blame her for the number of migrant crossings—which is decreasing. It’s a label Donald Trump used in last week’s debate, in between his multiple hateful, lie-filled rants about immigrants.

In reality, Harris’ role was mostly limited to addressing the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras through task forces focused on corruption and smuggling, and by working with the private sector to expand economic opportunities. That increased collaboration is generally viewed favorably by immigration advocates—but Harris’ focus on deterrence-based policies at the border has been criticized. As the Democratic nominee, she has come out in favor of the bipartisan immigration bill championed by Joe Biden, which would, among other things, allow the Department of Homeland Security to suspend most access to asylum outside of ports of entry when border encounters reach a certain level.

I think the hope is that overall, she’ll be taking a much more humanistic approach to immigration.

Adriel D. Orozco is a senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, which works to improve the immigration system. He believes that cutting off access to asylum based on the number of migrant encounters is the wrong approach to solving the problems of a strained and under-resourced system. Orozco does support the Biden administration’s use of parole to allow people to stay in the United States while they seek residency—he hopes to see Harris continue the practice. I spoke with him about Harris’ approach to tackling immigration challenges as a senator and as vice president, and what advocates hope to see from her administration if she becomes the 47th president.

Republicans have falsely billed Harris as Biden’s “border czar.” What do you think is the basis?

I think that there [were] some inaccurate representations of her work from the beginning: A lot of the headlines that were coming out at the time were focused on her addressing immigration generally, and White House officials said that she would oversee a whole government approach to dealing with immigration. There was a lot of confusion. 

What was Harris’ actual role in the Biden administration when it came to immigration policy?

President Biden announced at a press conference that Vice President Harris would take on a diplomatic campaign to address the root causes [of migration] from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The idea was to think about why folks were leaving that region. She was tasked with increasing public and private sector investment in the area to strengthen the economies. She was also trying to figure out ways to address corruption within the government and address some of the smuggling and human trafficking networks.

But from the beginning, it was meant to be a long-term strategy. It wasn’t meant for her to be focused on the border policy. That was always under the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.

What were the specific goals of the “Root Causes Strategy”?

Really thinking about [the] problems that are occurring in these Northern Triangle countries that are impacting people’s livelihoods and pressuring them to leave the region. She wanted to increase investment, particularly from the private sector, but also investment from other entities like the UN and USAID. Part of it was trying to address some of the networks that were being established around drug trafficking, human trafficking, [and] human smuggling, that were also leading to increased migration levels in the region.

Did the strategy represent a departure from that of previous administrations?

It depends on which administration, but there’s always been an attempt to try to provide investments in the region to support local economies. It was a pretty clear departure from the Trump administration, which was primarily trying to bolster the enforcement mechanisms within these countries to stop migration. So this was a departure in the sense that it was trying to look more broadly, not just from an enforcement and deterrence lens, but also about why people [are] coming.

Has it been successful?

That’s a little bit difficult to pinpoint. There are things that one can point to to say that it was successful. Vice President Harris and the Biden-Harris administration have pointed out that they secured more than $5 billion in private-sector investment in the region. They established a task force to try to create more collaboration between Mexico and these Northern Triangle countries to try to address smuggling and human trafficking. Generally speaking, there are lower numbers of migrants coming from that region, but there are many other reasons why that could be, particularly Mexico preventing them from getting to the US-Mexico border [and] some changes in El Salvador around security issues. So it’s hard to say, but it is important to create more regional cooperation. You can’t really just stop it border by border.

She tries to take a humanistic lens to migration, considering her background as a child of migrants, but she’s also a prosecutor.

What was Harris like in the Senate regarding immigration policy?

She is probably most well known for her ability to almost cross-examine Trump administration officials, particularly around the “zero-tolerance” policy that led to the separation of families at the border. More than 3,000 children were separated from their parents. In terms of policy, she was a vocal proponent of the DACA program and criticized the Trump administration when it rescinded the program. She also advocated for pathways for citizenship and was willing to take the administration head-on when she saw that [it] was doing real harm to immigrant communities.

What would your organization like to see from a Harris administration if she wins?

We would like to see a shift away [from] primarily relying on deterrence and enforcement policy at the border. We think immigration needs to be thought about more holistically. Unfortunately, we’ve seen, from the Biden-Harris administration, a rightward shift in its policy proposals. Particularly the Senate bipartisan bill that both Biden and Harris supported trying to cut off access to asylum as a means to deter migrants. And we think that that’s the wrong approach.

From what I’ve read and seen from Vice President Harris, I think she tries to take a balanced approach. She tries to take a humanistic lens to migration, considering her background as a child of migrants, but she’s also a prosecutor. She also sees the importance of enforcing the law and protecting vulnerable communities, so we think that there’s a prime opportunity for her to become much more of a vocal supporter of increasing pathways for individuals, so that they don’t have to make the treacherous journey to the United States border.

It was difficult to see that the bipartisan Senate bill was largely focused on trying to shut off access to asylum at the border. [We need] the proper balance of saying we need to have security at the border, but also that the folks who have been in the United States for a long time deserve a dignified process to becoming citizens.

What changes would you like to see to the asylum system in the United States?

The Senate border bill wasn’t all bad. Our organization thinks that there were some components that made sense. One was to make the asylum process non-adversarial. So, right now, the overwhelming majority of migrants are unable to get an attorney to represent them in immigration court proceedings, but the government is always represented by their government attorney. So if you’re able to have trained asylum officers, where it’s non-adversarial, you give people more of an opportunity to present their stories, and if they qualify to be in the United States, they can stay. 

One of our concerns with heavy-handed deterrence-based policies is that a lot of people are being sent back into harm’s way, when internationally, we have obligations to protect people from being placed back in harm’s way. The unfortunate thing for the Biden-Harris administration is that they have not been able to get the resources they need to address the larger [number] of individuals who had been presenting at the border.

What we’ve seen from her previous work is that she tries to be pragmatic.

And so they have been placed in an impossible situation by Congress, particularly conservatives who decided that they did not want to fund the systems that exist now. The system is broken in a myriad of ways, not just the laws that exist but also the fact that our Congress is unwilling to actually fund the laws that exist. 

When it comes to undocumented people already living in the United States, what do you think the Harris administration should do?

We do believe that the pathway to citizenship for immigrants who have been in the United States for a long time should be something she advocates for. I think it’s difficult to see, without a fundamental change in the makeup of Congress, how she would be able to actually get that passed. A lot of the tools that the Biden administration has been using, a Harris administration can use, [like] temporary protected status as a means to protect more populations in the United States.

Has Harris signaled any potential changes from the Biden administration on immigration policy?

We have heard from her speeches that she is supporting the bipartisan border bill and that she would advocate for it if she is able to win. Generally, she has said that she supports a pathway to citizenship. But we haven’t really received specifics on other policies. I do think that given her involvement with the Biden administration, she would take a similar approach around parole and TPS [Temporary Protected Status].

How do you view Harris’ recent move towards a more aggressive approach to campaigning on immigration? 

I think it is good to see her out there taking a stronger approach to rhetoric and really trying to shape the narrative. Obviously, she has a strong position, given Donald Trump’s involvement in making sure that the bipartisan bill didn’t move through Congress, but she is adopting the language of Republicans around crime and protection.

It fits with her role as a prosecutor—so part of it is politics, trying to meet folks who are concerned about the border and security, given the years of fear-mongering around that issue. I think what we’ve seen from her previous work is [that] she tries to be pragmatic. I’m sure that she’s trying to think about how you have rules in place while still honoring the folks who have been here for long periods of time without authorization.

It is a little bit concerning that the Democratic Party has adopted that language, but I think the hope is that overall, she’ll be taking a much more humanistic approach to immigration. And her opponent, his campaign’s rhetoric around immigration is just horrific—trying to use the military and the National Guard to round up migrants. So Vice President Harris is looking like the reasonable person in the room, even though, if [you] compare her to four years ago, she would probably be very much to the right in that rhetoric.